Merkel Wants to Be "Chancellor of All Germans"

Yes, Angela Merkel has won the German elections. Yes, she can probably form a governing coalition with liberal democratic, pro-business FDP. And yes, her main rivals, the Social Democrats lost around 10 percent with their worst showing since World War II.

Photo: Merkel Wants to Be "Chancellor of All Germans"

Merkel Wants to Be

But the CDU's numbers were also some of the worst in the party's history and now Angela Merkel will enter into coalition talks with a party that will push her hard for economic reforms that could prove hard to swallow for much of the German public, CNN reports.

The Wall Street Journal qouted Merkel as saying "We have reached our election goal."

Together with the FDP, the CDU/CSU got 48.4% of the votes, enough to secure a new coalition government, preliminary official results showed Monday.

"The results ensure a stable majority," Merkel said.

FDP leader Guido Westerwelle said they are "ready to take up responsibility and help govern Germany."

Coalition talks will start next week at the latest, with key jobs at the economics and finance ministries up for grabs, The Wall Street Journal reports.

It was also reported, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she'll press ahead with tax cuts and labor-market deregulation after winning re-election with enough support to govern with the pro-business Free Democrats.

With Germany struggling to recover from the deepest economic slump since World War II, voters spurned plans by Merkel’s Social Democratic challenger to raise taxes on top earners.

"There's a clear sentiment in favor of economic changes, especially on income taxes," Tilman Mayer, head of the Bonn- based Institute for Political Science, said in an interview. "Voters have turned their back on grand coalition-style compromise politics."

Merkel, 55, said on ARD television that talks on forming a coalition with the Free Democrats will proceed quickly, and her focus will be on creating jobs in Europe’s biggest economy. She dismissed the FDP’s call for a complete overhaul of the tax system, saying she wanted to be seen as the "chancellor of all Germans" and won’t let her new junior partner dictate policy, Bloomberg reports.